


Forget Me Not

by baranduin



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-23
Updated: 2007-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:30:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baranduin/pseuds/baranduin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief history of the naming of the princesses. I wrote this as a Yuletide Treat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget Me Not

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Cyn

 

 

Once upon a time, there was a king who had twelve beautiful daughters. 

You've seen that bit before, haven't you? The story's really quite famous though, if you ask me, I think a lot has been left out, not to mention that it's not over yet. We're still all in the midst of it, those of us who are living it (and dying, quite regularly, a baker's dozen at last count) and those of you who are hearing the tale told as it spreads throughout the Kingdom and beyond its borders.

We have names, you know. Though we make up an exact dozen, we are not merely known by our collective count. Just as the two of us mentioned in any sort of detail in any of the many (mostly dull) versions of our story have names other than "eldest" and "youngest," so do we all and I am going to tell you what they are. I suspect I am going to tell you a little more than just our names as well; at least I hope I do. My elder sisters tell me I cannot say anything simply, but as I am the writer of the family, they shall have to suffer my verbosity unless they prefer to live forever in anonymity and no one wants that.

But before I begin the tale of names, I should tell you that there is a rhyme and reason behind them. Don't laugh. I shall know. 

We all have flower names, courtesy of our dear departed mother. Mama was from England and loved the gardens of her homeland and missed them once she had left what was apparently the bower that was her father's house. The first few of us got flower names just because she found them pretty and I think they must have assuaged her homesickness a little. But then, girl after girl arrived with each turning of the year, and she was heard to refer to us as her living bouquet. Now, I cannot attest to that personally as I am the one referred to as "youngest," but "eldest" has told me this pretty tale many times. "Eldest" can be annoying and in no small part because she is always truthful.

Her name is Rose and it fits her for she possesses a regal beauty and always wears one red blossom in her dark curling hair, even in winter for Papa sees to it that the greenhouse is well cared for and that all our namesakes bloom there throughout much of the year regardless of the season. Every day he walks through the greenhouse and touches the petals gently, just as he strokes our heads each evening when we go up to bed. I think it makes him melancholy for he misses Mama, but it seems to be the sort of melancholy that can cheer you up in an odd sort of way. 

So that accounts for the first of us, and I must tell you that Rose does not like the diminutive, Rosie, though the rest of us are extremely fond of calling her that.

Between Rose and me come, in order of their birth, eldest to youngest (though this would not work if you lined us up by height, I have it all over them in that category), Violet, Iris, Primula, Lilac, Columbine, Daisy, Marigold, Magnolia, Camellia and Sweet William though she is mostly known as Willie and likes it that way.

As for my own name, there is a story that goes with it. I must warn you that it is a sad story though perhaps it will warm your hearts at the same time. I have heard the best stories can do that though I have not read very many of any kind of story since Papa likes to keep us ignorant (he calls it innocent and allows us only our nursery chapbooks). Drat. Rose has been looking over my shoulder the entire time I have been writing the history of our names, and she says I must not inflate my own importance. And I say that she should write her own history and leave me to mine.

As I was saying, my naming was an occasion filled with pathos and sadness, not that I remember it of course, being only a weak newborn who could barely mewl in my dying mother's arms. 

It is the great tragedy of my life that, in giving birth to me, my mother gave her own life. I expect she found it worth the price. I think my father did too, but that is for another part of our history, an important one of course for its consequences guide the shape of our lives today.

Yes, Rose dear, I will give this to you for your editorial suggestions, especially in the manner of run-on sentences, though of course you will keep in mind that I, as the author, have the final word.

So there my mother lay in her great soft bed that she had shared so happily with Papa, or so I have heard. But now her life's spirit was draining from her with every painful breath and feeble beat of her heart. Papa knelt at the bedside, one hand on Mama's pale forehead, one hand supporting me lest I tumble to the ground as Mama slowly weakened and I fall from the crook of her elbow.

At last she drew her final breath and, looking up at Papa with the fading light of love in her eyes, whispered very clearly, "Forget me not." She sighed then with the faintest of exhalations and expired.

There was quite a to do after that, or so Rose, Violet, Iris, Primula, Lilac, Columbine, Daisy, Marigold, Magnolia, Camellia and Willie have told me many times over the years though I think Mari, Maggie, Mellie and Willie are just pretending they remember the to do, famous though it was. 

"Ridiculous!"

"She was out of her mind!"

"That is not a name!"

"You'll be the laughingstock of the surrounding kingdoms!"

That was the family's general opinion when Papa announced that he planned to name me as Mama had requested. He had been madly in love with our Mama (and still is, he keeps their room exactly as it was on the day she died, well, except for the laundry) and wanted to grant her dying wish. As he was the King, he got his way even though he had to argue with his seven sisters for a month and a day. (I added that last bit, it seems to make things more resonant when you give them that kind of detail.)

So here I am saddled with the name Forget-Me-Not. 

Rose insists that I tell you they mostly call me Nottie except when they're vexed with me (which rarely happens, naturally, and if you believe that, I have a spare throne to sell you), and then they call me Princess Me. Either way, I can't decide if it's a trial to go through life this way or if it's just strikingly unusual and a good conversation opener.

You see, it has come in handy with those famous dancing partners of ours, who are all of a teasing nature. No, the twelve princes do not have names. Well, I expect they do (unless they really are a figment of our mutual imaginations and don't laugh at that idea, you'd have mutual imaginations if you'd been locked up at night for years and years as we have been), but they don't really take much solid shape once we come above ground again. It's the same for others. I've asked. They have said:

"Well of course they have names. The fellow with the curl over his forehead, he's called ... " 

"I keep meaning to ask the red-headed one, but then the music gets so loud and I start dancing again and then I forget to ask him."

"What do we care?"

That was Rose who said that. Of all of us, and perhaps because she is the oldest and possessed of a practical nature, she seems to be touched the least by our nighttime excursions. Odd, when you consider that it is her bed that turns into our doorway to that other world, though she claims not to have had anything to do with discovering it or wanting it. She always just says, "I bumped up against it one night and it just happened from there. Come on, it's time to go. They'll be waiting."

Well, you know how the story goes after that. Except maybe you don't really know, I'm never there when I hear it told at the various and sundry inns and firesides as I'm sure they are, mysterious tales about princesses being a going commodity. 

I am often leery of going and wish I could stay in my bed, scribbling away in one of my notebooks. But then they all tease me and tell me not to be a ninny, so of course I have to go with them and then when I get there, I'm always happy I have come and wish it could all go on forever, night after night and year after year.

There is a dreamlike quality to it, yet no dream I have ever had in my own little bed has ever come close. And don't think I haven't thought on more than one occasion that we are all dreaming, that we are all engaged in some collective dream born from our lives that have been so closely knit together on account of Papa's desperate need to keep us close and safe. I feel sad sometimes in the mornings. I know it must frighten him when he sees our shoes all worn out from the night before and not knowing how or why it happened. Who can blame him for doing as he has done? And who can blame us for following the lure of the light and music every night? I cannot though I expect the families and friends of the princes who have died for us do blame him ... and us.

I am maudlin this evening, aren't I? I thought again of not going along tonight and, as usual, Rose and the others have bullied me (Rose won't like that word) into accompanying them. I wonder--would it work if one of us did refuse to go?

But I am going and I have just tied my new slippers on, they are soft and supple. They are dyed a pale blue and match the velvet ribbons that trim my dress of primrose watered silk. How lovely it will be to twirl around and around in them until the soles begin to fray. 

We are ready to go. The new one is sleeping. He is older than the others, so I imagine sleep took him even more easily than it did the others. But sleep takes them all, three times sleep takes them, and on the fourth night they sleep forever. They stay with us forever, sleeping in the little graveyard in the wood which lies above the enchanted wood that lives below.

I wonder. Do they find it worth the price?

Yes, Rose. I'm coming. I think I shall dance with the one with the curl over his forehead tonight. 

 


End file.
